A Christian woman in Lahore, Pakistan was stripped naked and assaulted by four Muslim men enraged that her brother eloped with a married woman.
According to the Indian Express Tribune, Samra, 28, told police that the four armed men on Sunday forcefully entered her house and asked her about the whereabouts of her brother Badal, who had eloped with the wife of one of the attackers.
When she told the armed men that she did not know about her brother's whereabouts, they began to violently assault her.
"They dragged me to a room and tore apart my cloths and tried to rape me. I managed to flee towards the roof and jumped to the house of a neighbor where a woman provided me clothes," she told the outlet.
The young woman added that she nothing to do with the activities of her brother. However, while a case has been registered against Badal for allegedly kidnapping the wife of one of the attackers, police have not taken any action against the men on Samra's complaint.
Currently, several Christian organizations have appealed to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to order action against the suspects involved in torturing and striping of the woman.
According to World Watch Monitor, Lahore is a largely Christian-dominated city in the predominantly Muslim country. However, Christians are nevertheless considered religious minorities and treated as inferior citizens by their Muslim counterparts.
Last month, Muslim extremists in the region threatened to burn alive members of a Christian family and abduct and kill young Christian girls in the area after a Muslim woman eloped with a Christian man.
In June, a pastor was brutally attacked and beaten by police after a Muslim man complained the church service was too loud. The congregation became very upset and Christians later staged a protest on Ferozepur Road and blocked traffic.
In light of rampant persecution, Pakistan's People's Party Vice President and Senator Sherry Rehman last month criticized the government for its failure to protect religious minorities and said that inaction amounts "tacit approval" of the crimes.
"Pakistan cannot continue to tolerate continual religious persecution of its minorities. They are not second-class citizens and should not be treated as such." Rehman said.
Rehman urged the government to come up with a plan to combat such persecution: "The government needs to take a clear position on how it treats its citizens, especially the marginalized and vulnerable. It needs to have a plan of action that we can all uphold and pursue,"
Open Doors USA's 2015 World Watch List report ranked Pakistan as number 8 on the list of nations where Christians face the most severe persecution.
